Warehouse management system (WMS) is the name attributed to computer programs "Program (computing)") intended to manage the operations of a warehouse.[1]​[2]​ It comes from the translation of the English term «WMS» (warehouse management system).[3]​[4]​.

It also refers to the optimization of warehouse management to increase efficiency, reduce costs and improve productivity within the supply chain. Key practices include making the most of available space, automating processes through advanced technologies such as robots and automatic systems, as well as efficient inventory management through tools such as RFID and warehouse management systems (WMS). Likewise, the importance of proper warehouse organization and the ability to adapt processes to changing business demands is highlighted, which facilitates the execution of orders and improves customer service. [5]​.

Warehouse management systems[6]​ have the main objective of maintaining the stock values ​​of the items and their positions in the warehouse correctly and all the information on the movements of the items within a warehouse is achieved by recording all the physical movements of the warehouse and then consulting them in the database. Deleting records from the database is one of the main mistakes when creating a transactional system like this.

To avoid errors it is advisable to follow a series of practices:

Being a product that deals with a very specialized field, it is normally a departmental computer system that is linked to the rest of business management or ERP, since the warehouse management modules of standard ERPs normally do not meet all the required functionalities or lack the appropriate interfaces either for the management of automatic identification elements (bar codes, radio frequency tags, pick to light" viewers, voice picking systems, etc.) or automatic maintenance (miniloads"), stacker cranes, rotary cranes, extraction towers, roller conveyors, etc.).

A WMS has two basic types of optimization mechanisms "Optimization (mathematical)"), one dedicated to optimizing storage space, through adequate location management and another aimed at optimizing movements or flows of material, whether carried out by machines or by people.

In addition, it can integrate cross docking mechanisms, to deal with those cases in which the material passes through the warehouse only for the distribution process, so it is not stored, but simply distributed, moving the material from the warehouse's entry docks to the exit docks, automatically assigning the material received from suppliers to customer orders. It is this movement of distribution from dock "Dock (construction)") from entry to exit docks that gives the name to this type of operation.